What struck me about this video was the stark cultural differences between where this guy is from and whet we're used to. I'm not just talking about the obvious differences in how much personal agency and autonomy women have in his culture vs. ours. I'm talking about the way we interpret the title of the video itself.

Think about this: Where this dude is from, when you talk about "beating your wife" what's that mean? He's talking about "discipline" and acting from a motivation of love and leadership. (Mind you, that's not how we do here in the West, but bear with me for a second) He's not talking about the kind of heavy, closed fisted lashing one might imagine from he title. As westerners, when we read that title and think about the idea of somebody beating their wife, we're picturing a LOT more violence. We're picturing black eyes and bloody lips and domestic violence arrests and the whole nine yards. In our culture, if a man beats his wife at all it tends to be extreme. Oddly, the dude in this video would probably be outraged by the types of domestic violence we see in our culture, as much as we are. He's talking about shaking someone by the shoulders or relatively light slaps to the arms... stuff like that.

That said, obviously the message of this video doesn't fly in the west or in Christianity generally. What's weird to me though is that this video isn't misogynist. Incredibly sexist, yes... But there's a difference. This dude doesn't hate women, but he obviously see them as second-class citizens. He's talking about disciplining a wife for leaving the house without permission, for cryin' out loud. He's not talking about causing injuries from malice. He's talking about putting women "in their place." That's insanely sexist by our standards.

I laughed, not because sexism is funny or because I don't care about the issues. I just couldn't help thinking about how absurd and backward this looks from my own Western, Christian, raised-to-respect-women point of view.

"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens

The difference is this is accepted in the Islamic culture. Not just Qatar, the entire Muslim world. I read Not Without My Daughter, which is set in Iran. When her husband beat her(the author), her sister-in-law said 'all men do this.'

Islam is disrespectful to women. The ancient Egyptian and Persian cultures held women in high regard. Not as equals to men, but they had a much higher status than in say, Greece or Rome.